March 12, 2024
Before I left Vancouver my friend, Anne, asked if I would do her a favour and buy ice cream for the kindergarten children at Saigeetha’s School. I agreed, of course:)
I visited Saigeetha and told her of Anne’s wish and she agreed. I would need to purchase one hundred and twelve ice cream treats for the three kindergarten classes. It would be a welcome suprise, a cold treat on a very hot day.
The Sai Super Specialty Bazaar was the place to go, so I went right away and inquired. Would they be able to provide that many ice cream treats next monday? Yes! So the date and time was set, and the price of ten rupees per cone. I would be back at 10:15 am monday. I would arrive just prior to break time for the children. Time was of the essence as they would melt fast.
The next evening I thought best to double check, it had been a busy weekend and I didn’t want a disappointing suprise in the morning, for the children, or for me!
I spoke with a different worker that evening and was taken to the freezers, shown the cones, and yes tomorrow morning they will be ready for me. Check. and Price? Always good to double check…he thought 25 or 35 rupees each. Hmmmm. That’s a bit different. Anyways, all is well. I’ll be back to pick them up.
Next, I was off to the ATM I wanted to make sure I had enough rupees in case the price was triple the original price. I got to the ATM only to find it was out of rupees! Not particularly unusual as it was sunday evening and a festival weekend, but bad timing.
Plan B, off to see my old, dependable friend Tariq:) We have been great friends since my first visit to India. I explained my dilemna and he without pause gave me more than enough cash to cover the costs. I would have enough also to hold me over til the ATM’s were back up and running. Hopefully tomorrow.
Ice Cream day arrived, and this keener got to the shop waaaaaay too early so I passed the time looking around the store, all four floors…over and over.
I went to the cashiers and paid ahead of time as I didn’t want to take the chance of having the ice creams melting in a line up.
The moment arrived and I got the large box brought out to my rickshaw. In two minutes we got to the school. We pulled up to the primary schools building and Tulsi helped me with the box up to the classsrooms. We wanted to catch the children before they went on break, as I only had ice creams for the kindergarten children and there are 750 children in the whole school.
We approached the rooms with the boxes of treats. Entering each classroom the children greeting me with “Sai Ram’s” as the teacher announced what was to happen to a room of smiling children.
I distributed the treats, each child thanking me and waiting until everyone had their cones before beginning to unwrap and eat.
Smiles abound:)
It was a wonderful morning. One hundred very happy children, along with my very happy heart.
Thank you and Blessings Anne for the opportunity to do this Seva!